LIVELY PUBLIC MEETING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19340, 2 June 1937, Page 12

LIVELY PUBLIC MEETING

DEFENCE OF E STATIONS

GOVERNMENT DEFENDED

RESOLUTION OF PROTEST

(Per Prnss Association.) DUNEDIN, lust night. A lively, and frequently amusing, meeting of radio listeners filled the concert chamber of the Town Hall this evening, when representatives of the B stations and local organisations that have used or benefited by such stations, presented the case for private enterprise in broadcasting, and endeavoured to show cause why the Government should be urged to redeem its pre-election proinises, and either 'buy out or subsidise the local broadcasting units. The Mayor, the Rev. E. F. Cox, who convened the meeting, was in the chair, and father took the wind out of everyone’s sails by opening proceedings with a recital of the Government’s intentions as received by him that afternoon from the acting-Prime Minister, the Hon. P. Eraser. He stated that the Government was prepared to allow station 4ZB to remain on the air, to buy out those who wished to sell, anil to subsidise such stations as might be considered essential. The ease for the B stations was volubly put, in the first instance, by Mr. Harold Booth, of the Radio Listeners’ League, who was followed by the Rev. L. B. Neale and the Rev. A. 0. Standage, representing the broadcasting committee of the Presbyterian 1 Ohureh, Mr. J. Roberts, Mayor of Cromwell, and Mr. W. J. Bardflley, but the issue did not go unchallenged.

Round of Heckling Several more or less incoherent speakers and a host of inter;jeetors were inclined to suggest that the meeting had been convened in the interests of the proprietors of the B stnfions, and the Hon. M. Connelly, M.L.C., and Dr, McMillan, M.P., took up the cudgels very determinedly on the part of the Government. The result was a hectic, round of heckling and interjecting, with several sharp reprimands from the chair before the meeting carried, by no means unanimously, the following resolution: “That this meeting of citizens of Dunedin views with the gravest concern the suggestion that the local B stations may He forced to close down ns a result of the Government’s policy, and calls on the Government to carry out its pledges to these stations" in their entirety, and that further, the Government be requested to take a plebiscite of listeners on the retention or otherwise of the B stations, and that in tlie event of the vote going for their retention, the Government bo asked whether such stations are to be maintained by revenue from advertising or by means of an adequate, subsidy. ” It was stated by Mr. Booth that application had been made for permission to broadcast the meeting, but it was refused bv the Minister.